Run
by Darkchilde
Summary: Sometimes, all you can do is run...


Disclaimer: Molly and Chandler are mine--the other characters are not. This fic is the product of watching the rain scene in "Independence Day" (The Roswell episode--all you Roswellians (especially the Candygirls) know what I'm talking about) one to many times, and then listening to Collective Soul's "Run" on repeat for about three hours. Yes, I do realize that I have already written a series with this same sort of plot, but trust me--Catalyst (this series) is going to be very VERY different from Caitie's Home Life Sucks! (ANd, LOOK MC! I got the fic up! I hope it's work getting up at five in the morning for!) :) Anyway, without further ado....

Run

The soft cadence of the rain falling on the roof woke Jamie Waite up. He kept his eyes closed for a long moment, just looking at the back of his eyelids and wondering if he should open his eyes or just keep them closed until he fell back asleep. After another long moment of staring at the insides of his eyelids, he decided that opening them was the better of his two options. 

Cracking his eyelids, Jamie took in his dark room. The moon and stars were hidden by the rain clouds, and the tiny nightlight that was just outside his room--his two younger sisters still had trouble finding the bathroom in complete darkness--had burned out the other night, and no one had replaced the bulb yet. The blackness of the room surrounded him, making it impossible for him to see anything but the glowing red numbers of his alarm clock. Twelve thirty five in the morning it informed him smugly. 

Jamie groaned, and tried to shut his eyes. Damn it, now he was never going to get back to sleep, and it was only a little bit past midnight. 

Ever since he had been very small, Jamie had had a rather peculiar sleep pattern. He slept until he woke up, whither it was two in the morning or one in the afternoon--and then he couldn't go back to sleep, no matter how hard he tried. Once he was up, he was up. 

Sighing in annoyance, he reopened his eyes and sat up in bed. Reaching out blindly, he groped for the switch on the lamp that rested on the night table beside his bed. Flipping it on, he blinked in the sudden brightness. Screwing his eyes shut for a minute, he opened them quickly, trying to get his eyes to adjust to the light faster then they already were. However, his only reward for trying to help his eyes along were tiny purple, red and green spots dancing in front of him. 

Lying back against his pillows with a muffled "hmmp", Jamie stared up at his ceiling, studying the tiny cracks in it. Insomnia, or whatever it was he had, he decided, was a bitch. Not to mention duller then dishwater. 

The soft creak of his door caught his attention, and he sat up on an elbow, his dark brown eyes darting to the doorway. The same pair of brown eyes stared back at him from the doorway, only these eyes shown out from underneath a mop of slightly curly red hair. 

"Molly, what are you doing up?" Jamie asked his eight year old sister, as he waved her over to his bed. Grinning a gap toothed smile at him, she darted over to his double bed, and climbed up beside him, snuggling under the covers. 

"The rain woke me up." The little girl explained, her lips pulled into a frown. 

"Oh." Was all Jamie could think to say--Molly has the same type of sleeping habits as he did--no matter what, once she was up, she was up. And she hated to be up alone--if she knew that Jamie was awake, she would always slip into his room. The two had spent many long nights together, just laying awake in Jamie's bed, taking peace in the solitude that surrounded them. "Well, try to go back to sleep." 

"Why? It's Saturday tomorrow." Molly told him, shrugging her shoulders. 

"I know, but you need to go back to sleep or you'll be to tired to stay awake through--what's the cartoon you like so much? Sailor Planet?" Jamie told her, grinning at the disgusted face she made. 

"Sailor _Moon_, Jamie. Not Sailor Planet!" Molly rolled her eyes at her brother's incompetence when it came to Saturday morning cartoons. 

"Oh, my bad." Jamie snickered, reaching over the little girl to kill the light. The darkness settled over them like an old blanket, and the two Waite siblings lay in companionable silence, no words needed. 

"Sailor Planet. Sheesh--don't you know anything Jamie?" 

"Well, excuse me for not being up on current cartoon fades--those big eyed creatures scare the heck out of me!" 

@-}--}---

Drunken laughter, not the rain, was what woke Caitie Roth up. She sat straight up in bed when she heard the first bark of inebriated laughter, followed quickly by the shattering of a bottle. More guffaws followed, and the brunette shivered, wrapping her arms around herself. It looked like her mother and her various friends were at it again. 

Another crash of glass on the hard wood floor made it to her ears, and the girl shivered again, deciding that sleep was not going to be possible this night. Throwing back the covers, Caitie climbed out of bed and padded on bare feet to the window. Pushing aside the dark green curtains, she stared out into the rain, her mind slipping back over the years. 

It had been a night like this when her father had left her, her little brother, and her mother. Caitie had been about ten at the time, but her little brother Chandler had only been a year old. She hadn't understood at the time why her father had left--until Matt had moved in. Matt was her mother's "new" boyfriend, Jenniffer Roth had claimed--but even at the age of ten, Caitie could see the resemblance between Matt and Chandler. 

Matt had been okay, when he was sober, Caitie mused, still staring out the window. He hadn't carried to much for either her nor her brother--actually, come to think of it, he hadn't cared to much for her mother either, even though she had been madly in love with him. He had stayed, just as long as she kept him well supplied with liquor.

After a while, Jenniffer had begun to drink with him, getting drunk rather then going to work. Matt and her mother's relationship began to deteriorate then, Caitie remembered, shuddering at the memory of the screaming matches that always ended with something being broken or her mother applying more make-up the normal the next morning. When Jenniffer had finally lost her job for showing up to drunk to stand properly, and what little bit of money they had saved ran out, Matt had caught the first train out of time. 

Her mother had been devastated. Caitie shuddered a little bit, crossing her arms back over her chest. That had been the first, and only time she had ever felt sorry for the woman that had given her life. 

A scream, and then more drunken laughter cut through the fog of memory that was surrounding her brain, and Caitie trembled again, before steeling herself. Strong--she needed to be strong. Taking a deep breath, she willed herself to be strong, to be steel. Strong...she needed to be strong. The thought ran through her mind over and over again, like a mantra. 

The creaking of the door spooked her out of her thoughts, and she spun around, her hands half raised in a defensive position. If it was one of her mother's drinking buddies...

"Caitie?" A young male voice quivered in the darkness, and the girl dropped her hands. 

"Chandler. What's wrong?" She asked, squinting in the darkness. "Turn on the light, I can't see anything." 

A click, and then her room was flooded with light. Chandler hovered in at the doorway of her room, the door cracked open half way, his hands tightly grasping the golden doorknob. His eyes, much darker then hers, were wide and afraid, and his unruly black hair stuck up like he had been running his fingers through it. 

"Caitie...Caitie, I'm scared." Chandler whimpered, looking very young, for all of his eight years of life. 

"Yeah. Me too." Caitie whispered, before waving him into her room. Chandler stepped gladly into his older sister's room, shutting the door quietly behind him. "Lock it." She ordered, and he obeyed quickly, before scooting across the floor to hop up on her bed. She sat down on the corner of her double bed as well, crossing her arms over her chest. 

"Do you think Momma's okay?" Chandler asked after a minute, his voice shaken and worried. Caitie bit back the harsh words about her mother that leapt to her tongue, for her little brother's sake, and nodded her head. 

"I'm sure she's fine. Mom's a big girl, she can take care of herself." Caitie tried to reassure her frightened kid brother. 

Another breaking bottle, followed by another scream punctuated her statement. 

@-}--}----

"I'm hungry." Molly Waite informed her brother, sitting up in his bed. At least, he thought she was sitting up--it was still raining outside, so his room was almost unnaturally dark. 

"You're always hungry." Jamie told her, snickering at the undignified grunt that was her response. 

"I am not!" 

"Yes you are." 

"Am not!" 

"Are too." 

"Well, so what if I am?" Molly finally relented, and pouted, through the effect on her brother was lost because he couldn't see it. "I'm _hun_gry now. Can we go get something to eat?" 

"Molly, we don't HAVE anything to eat, remember? Mom's gotta go grocery shopping tomorrow." Jamie reminded the girl, grinning at the pathetic little moan she let out.

"But I'm hungry _now!"_

"Molly..." Jamie tried to control the laugh that bubbled up in his chest, with limited success. 

"Can we go get something to eat? PLEASE?" Molly begged, reaching out to turn on the light so her trembling lower lip could do it's worse. 

Once again, light flooded the room, and Jamie blinked rapidly in the sudden onslaught, trying to avoid the dancing, multicolored spots. The first thing he saw when his eyes cleared was his little sister's best pout, her lower lip stuck out and her big brown eyes filling with tears. 

"No, Molly." 

"Please Jamie?" 

"No." 

"PLEASE?" This time the little girl scooted closer so she could climb into her brother's lap and lay her head on his shoulder. 

"Molly..." 

"I'm hungry Jamie, please??" 

"Mom's going to kill me for this." Jamie groaned, running his fingers through his hair as he caved to his little sister's pleading brown eyes. 

"YAY!" Molly jumped out of bed, her small feet already dancing toward the door. Jamie shook his head, grumbling under his breath about being a wuss that couldn't say no to his little sisters. He grabbed his leather jacket, throwing it on over his white wife beater and padding on bare feet out the door after his little sister. 

They quietly made their way past the rest of their sleeping family, and crept to the garage. Molly gleefully jumped up to punch the button that made the garage door open. As it slowly inched open, the Waite siblings climbed into their mother's car, Jamie making sure to buckle Molly in securely. That done, he turned the car over, silently hoping that the roar of the engine wouldn't wake anyone in his family up. 

As soon as they were on the road, Jamie released the breath he hadn't realized he had been holding. Molly heard the expulsion of air, and she looked over at him from the shot gun set. 

"What?" 

"You do realize that Mere is going to kill us for this, don't you?" Jamie reminded her, keeping his eyes on the rainy road. "Only you would want to go get something to eat in the middle of the night during a thunder storm."

"Hey, _you're_ the 'responsible' older brother." Molly made quotes with her fingers as she said the word responsible. 

"Cute little sister. Real cute. Keep it up, and I'm taking you to Tres V instead of McDonalds." Jamie threatened, knowing how much his little sister despised Chinese food.

"EEEEWWW!!" 

@-}--}---

Chandler Roth huddled against his older sister Caitie fearfully, the drunken voices on the other side of the locked door scaring the daylights out of him. Every once in awhile, a breaking bottle would punctuate someone's garbled sentence, and he would cringe, hanging on tighter to Caitie's black tank top. 

"When do you think they'll leave?" He asked in a small voice, looking up with scared brown eyes at Caitie. The girl swallowed hard, and patted him on the back softly, praying her voice wouldn't break when she tried to talk to him. 

"I'm sure they'll leave...soon. Soon. Mom...mom has to work tomorrow. She'll make them leave...soon." Caitie managed to make it through the entire sentence without her voice breaking to terribly, but she knew that Chandler didn't believe her any more then she believed herself. 

A coarse laugh, much closer then anything had been all night, broke through the silence that had descended after Caitie had stopped trying to reassure Chandler. He cringed violently, tightening his hold on Caitie, who hugged back. 

"Hey, Jen'fer! Jen'fer! Don' ya have a purty little girl 'round here someplace..." Another laugh, closer then the last, filled that air, and Caitie muffled a shriek of horror, Chandler gripping her like a life line. 

They couldn't hear their mother's reply, but the man's laughter once more filled the air, and Caitie made a decision. Pushing her brother off of her, she hurried to the window, slinging it open. Ignoring the rain and the wind, she stuck her head out of it, examining the ground underneath her window. Deciding that it was safe enough, and thanking God her family lived in a single story house, Caitie turned back to her little brother and waved her hand at him. 

Obediently, Chandler came forward, looking at her in confusion. He opened his mouth to ask, but Caitie pushed a finger against his lips, and pointed out the window. Chandler blinked in confusion, but then his expression cleared, and he nodded quickly. 

"I'll go first. Stand right here by the window." Caitie instructed, slipping to the window and then out of it. Her feet hit the ground hard, and she muffled a shriek of pain, cursing herself for net remembering to put a pair of shoes on at least. 

"Chandler, come on." Caitie hissed. For a moment, there was silence, but then her little brother's feet came into view, followed quickly by the rest of him. Catching him around the waist, Caitie swung him around and settled him on her hip, just like she use to when he had been smaller. He nuzzled his head into her shoulder, and Caitie let the odd sense of comfort that it brought her crash over her. 

"I can walk." He protested feebly., but he didn't lift his head from her shoulder, or make any attempts to get down. 

"Just hang on, alright?" Caitie demanded, heading across the lawn to the sidewalk. When her feet hit the pavement, she turned left and started walking as fast as possible away from her and Chandler's so called "home". 

@-}--}---

"Yummy. Yummy. Yummy." Molly informed her brother cheerfully, chewing on a golden fry. Jamie chuckled, and rolled his eyes at the little girl, before turning his attention back to the road. 

"I'm glad you're enjoying it, because it's probably going to be our last meal when Mere finds out wheat we did." Jamie reminded her, and he could almost hear Molly rolling her eyes. 

"Is it my fault I get hungry a lot?" 

"No, I suppose it's--" Jamie was suddenly cut off as the headlights of the car caught two young people trudging along the sidewalk in the opposite direction. The light illuminated Caitie Roth's face for an instant, and Jamie slammed on the brakes, his heartbeat suddenly increasing. 

What in the world was Caitie doing out at this time of night, with what looked like her little brother? What had happened? Was someone hurt? Or sick? 

Yanking the car into park, Jamie leapt out of the car, slamming the door as he did so. The bang of the door caught Caitie's attention, and she whirled around, her features weary. But she visibly relaxed when she saw who it was. 

"Jamie...what are you..." Caitie asked, shocked to see her back -up best friend appear in front of her, seemingly out of no where. 

"What are _you_ doing out here, Caitie? is something wrong? Are you hurt, is some one in your family sick?" Jamie pelted Caitie with questions, much to the girl's chagrin. Chandler huddled behind her legs, looking up at Jamie in awe. 

"Caitie, who's that?" He whispered to his older sister, who put a comforting hand on his head. Jamie noticed the little boy then, looking from the child to Caitie in confusion. 

"Chandler, this is my friend, Jamie Waite. Jamie, this is my little brother Chandler." Caitie introduced the to, and then shivered almost involuntarily. Her action seemed to remind Jamie that the three of them were standing in the middle of the pounding rain. 

"God--come on, get in. I'll drive you home." Jamie offered, turning toward his car.

"No!" Chandler cried, before Caitie could stop him. Jamie turned back around, looking at the Roth siblings in confusion, and dawning worry. "No, we can't go home!" Chandler was almost hysterical by this time, and Jamie switched his gaze from the little boy to his older sister.

"Caitie, what's going on?" Jamie asked, walking towards them until he was only about a foot away--close enough that he could reach out and touch either one of them.

"Nothing...nothing..." Caitie was lying through her teeth, and everyone standing there knew it. Jamie, choose to ignore it for the time being, deciding to focus mainly on getting Caitie and Chandler out of the rain and somewhere safe. 

"Where were you going?" He asked.

"We don't know." Chandler piped up again, earning him a slightly baleful glare from his older sister. 

"Well, you can't stay here." Jamie told them firmly, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Who says?" Caitie shot back, her temper suddenly flaring.

"Caitie, it's pouring!" 

"We'll be fine." 

"It's past midnight!"

"Whose going to attack us in Kingsport?" Caitie asked, shrugging her shoulders. "Besides, where would we go?"

"To my house." Jamie informed her, and the girl in front of him shook her head violently.

"Uh uh. No way." She stressed, shaking her head no. 

"Caitie..." Jamie suddenly closed the distance between him and the Roths very quickly, putting his hands on her shoulders. "Please?"

"Alright." Caitie relented after a long minute, the pleading in his beautiful eyes, and the knowledge that they really _couldn't_ stay out in this weather winning her over. "Alright." 

Jamie let a small smile touch his lips, and he moved toward the car, opening the backdoor and poking his head inside. Molly peered back at him, confusion written on her small face. 

"Molly, get in the back." Jamie ordered, and the little girl quickly complied, shimming over the back of the seat. By that time, Chandler and Caitie had reached the car, and the young man waved Chandler into the backseat.

The little boy came face to face with Molly at that moment, and he stared at her in shock. Molly stared back at him for minute, before smiling, and holding out her McDonalds bag. 

"You want a French fry?" 

Caitie made her way to the front passenger side door and slid in, relieved to be out of the rain. Jamie slid into the driver's seat and pulled the still running car out of park, his eyes darting to Caitie in worry. He opened his mouth to speak, but the brunette held up a finger. 

"Jamie...Jamie, please. No questions. Not tonight." 

After hearing the pleading, desperate tone in her voice, Jamie couldn't do anything else but honor her request. 


End file.
